Terminator: The Worlds We will Forget, Purged in Flames
by freedominspring
Summary: In progress novel set in the Terminator Universe. The novel starts shortly before Judgment Day. For the purposes of this work, only the original film is considered canon.


CHAPTER 1

Kaitlin Hayden, 13, sat with her back against the brick wall in the basement of the abandoned Church. She was on the verge of crying and she lifted a hand to her face. She knew she could never go home again, and face her parents, who she hated. She had left everything she had known and she remembered the year before when she would stay at home all day and play Nintendo games, always feeling very lonely and locked away from the rest of the world. She had given all she had up for one person, John Connor, who was 13 years old. He would constantly tell her about a war which would wipe out half of humanity on August 27. Part of her believed him, and part of her did not. But if he was right and she stayed in Richmond on August 27, four days from now, she would be dead. If John was right, all of her family would die as well and there was nothing she could do to save them, no matter how loudly she yelled at her parents, they would be dead. The only reason she even partially believed John was because the things John prophesied about the future had come true. John, who never had a close friend in his life, because of how often he would move, and how little time he spent in one military school, told her all of his secrets and the two became very close friends. The only reason Kaitlin did not think of John as totally insane or totally gullible was because of John's charisma, a smile that would make Kaitlin wish she could leave the world behind, all of it and forsake all of her friends and family just to be with him, and every day afterward Kaitlin would wish she had never thought that.

John's smile was wicked, just like his personality was. Everything about him exuded a kind of darkness and emptiness that drew Kaitlin to him, although he was only 13 years old. Maybe it was because of how fed up with the world John was, that he exuded such a darkness from within himself and a hatred towards everyone around him. Kaitlin knew that he loved other people outwardly but what was inside him was monstrous, like a demon that would destroy the world. Only 13 years old and John had spent all or most of his time in military institutions and his muscles were huge for someone his age. In addition to his physical strength, Kaitlin knew he was the smartest young person she had ever met. He was a master of manipulation and getting what he wanted. Whenever John wanted to do something, he achieved it. It didn't matter if the means were ethical or not, he got away with it nonetheless, everything else was collateral damage that did not matter at all. John knew the war was coming and Kaitlin knew too but did not want to admit it to herself. When the Skynet defense system came online, the date John had predicted it, Kaitlin knew, without admitting it to herself that John was right, and the only reason Kaitlin would live to see the next week, would be because she had listened to John, although she gave no indication that she was, and read his note and met him and Sarah, his mother, in the parking lot by her home late at night. It was John's last invitation to save her life. He knew he could not warn the world, they were too far gone and he hated them all, almost wishing death and hellfire on them and that is what they would receive. It was too late anyway, because it would be pulling the plug on Skynet that would cause it to turn hostile and destroy its first and greatest threat, mankind—its creator.

In the back of the room was a muted TV which was playing international news. The reporter on the screen was discussing the new advancements in technology that had come about in the last ten years due to Cyberdyne systems. Everything happened exactly the way Sarah Connor said it would happen. One computer system hooked into the civilian worldwide computer network, as well as the government sectors. In the past ten years the world's computers had astronomically increased in power, all due Cyberdyne's advancement. John knew that as soon as computer machines had the power to reproduce themselves in factories autonomously, the world would come to an end. All in the past ten years, the world changed from computers being huge and rare, to having Cyberdyne skeleton machines on every street corner, even used in law enforcement and more broadly for military purposes. The Persian Gulf War was fought entirely with Cyberdyne machines. Machines that had power and the ability to adapt themselves to environments, some even having the power to speak. John almost thought the world deserved the annihilation it would receive from its own evil creations. All of his short life John had known nothing but heart shattering and pain. The only friend he had was his mother. John sat on a table cleaning his weapons, he looked over and noticed the tears that were streaming down Kaitlin's eyes. John did not let anything in the world bother him, cutting off all attachment to other people and grief filled him. John stopped cleaning the AK-47 and looked at Kaitlin; now she was sobbing in a very noticeable way and she called out for John in a panic.

"John!" she said. "What are we going to do? If what you say is true, when they try to pull the plug on Skynet, in three days, won't the world be destroyed? How can we survive this?"

"The most important thing," said John, "is that you keep your cool. Panic will increase our chances of not getting through this. We have to stick together as people. The bombs will be like judgment on the human race, a judgment passed because we chose machines instead of each other, we chose death instead of life. The ones who created the hydrogen bomb, didn't have regard for human life. When Skynet takes control it won't have regard for ours."

Kaitlin became silent and her crying subsided.

John continued to talk to her, reassuring her; often lying to her, both that they had a good chance of getting through the coming nuclear fire and that humanity would also survive and deserved to. He personally believed none of these statements. As he tried to comfort her, John remembered his earliest childhood memories, the trauma, the death, the constant danger all of which his mother guided him through as the rest of the world showed its true nature. Sarah had killed several people to protect John from those who would want to kill or kidnap him. She never told the police though and always handled all of their problems by herself. In the middle of the night, she would often cry, still grieving for John's father Kyle who had been killed in 1984. John remembered coming up to his mother's bed room in the middle of the night when he was ten years old and comforting her from the grief she still suffered which became obvious every so often. Ever since John was young she told him about the machines that had killed Kyle, his father, and that they would come for him one day and that he was the key to the salvation of the human race.

"How am I supposed to do this mom? I don't want to be—to be so important! What's so special about me? I can't even get my own life in order. I'm not Jesus Christ! I can't carry the grief and wrongs of the entire world. I can't lead an army." Sarah stared at him and let him finish and he said "I want out of this. I don't want to be some messiah. Why not let the world burn?"

At this Sarah stopped him and this was what caused John never to express his concerns of the wickedness of humanity to her again.

"No, John. You are the key to salvation. If you cannot stop Skynet, no one will. Now get on your feet soldier." John stood up and looked his mother in the eye.

Sarah pointed down the firing range and handed John his M16 back. "Fire a magazine at that target. You need to improve your speed and your aim."

At this time John was ten years old and he had been taught military skills and strategy all of his life by his mother. All this was a memory, when he still wasn't sure that his mother was right. Now he sat in front of Kaitlin and stared at her eyes, like Sarah used to stare at his, with a kind of affection that desired the ultimate good of the other, no matter how much hellfire and pain one must go through to get to that ultimate good. It was night and the crickets were making noise. John had been having a conversation of small talk with Kaitlin for some time. But now he said what he knew was important. "I used to think everyone lived preparing for war, because my mom had me training for it, since the cradle. You've had a different life, though, but I promise you all the stuff you took for granted, did not last because only when we are stripped of those things do we realize what really matters."

"What really matters, John?"

"Faith, hope and love."

"Oh, please…don't preach to me." Kaitlin shrugged.

"It's not like that. It was believing that got me up to this point and where I am today. It was hoping for a better world that kept me alive, and its love that we live for. These three things are what keep us human. Different from the machines. Charity is so important. Human connection is so important because the world is so bankrupt of it. Always believe. Believe in the hope of the future."

"You're telling me to hope for the future? The future is about to be annihilated."

"That's not true". said John.

"What are you not telling me?" she asked.

"There's so much I haven't told you."

"How did you know that Skynet would come online the date it did and that the world's ending in three days?"

"Because someone from the future came back and told my mother. I wouldn't have believed it, if it weren't for the future prophecies that came true, but the world as we know it is ending tomorrow. It's going to be a war, a dogfight between us and the lifeless machines, the inheritance of the ones who will be judged on judgment day, they became machines themselves."

"Can't we warn them?" she asked.

"Absolutely not."

"What's the problem?"

"They won't accept the warning. They'd label us insane. Any who would speak out against Skynet will be put in a mental hospital. It's happened before. Most of the world is absolutely convinced that the Skynet network is absolutely harmless. No one knows how wrong they are. On the 27th at 2:45 am the world will find out, when Skynet launches its defense missiles and strikes Russia, the counter attack will decimate Skynet's enemies, and cripple nations. After that the machines will move in to try to wipe out the human resistance that will rise from the nuclear fire. I guess it is only going through those fires that we will truly become human and truly know how badly we have shattered each other's hearts. The world will be purified."

John went on and Kaitlin listened to all of his words, as John described what will happen in the future and reiterated his hatred for the majority of humanity. Kaitlin stared at him as he spoke and she knew that if it was any other person saying the words John was saying to her, she would have thought he was totally insane, but John Connor spoke with a religious authority in his voice. Kaitlin had never heard of the effect cults can have on people who use lies to get what they want and have often caused the deaths of their followers, but Kaitlin knew all of the words John was saying were true and that if she did not listen to him, her world would come to an end, but she would follow him through the nuclear fire and arise from it purified as a new creature, scarred with the knowledge of what can happen to human persons who have forgotten faith hope and charity; who have forgotten what it means to give oneself totally to another. John was offering her the greatest gift anyone had ever given her, salvation and eternal life in the way of making a name for herself as one of the first members of the human resistance, one of the first people to know what was really going on and one of the first believers in the hope of the world to come.

Before both of them decided to go to sleep, John turned on the television. What they saw on the screen shocked both of them. Just as John had prophesied, an unknown virus had infected Cyberdyne networks and was making its way through the Skynet system. Government officials of many nations were debating whether or not to pull the plug on Skynet, although no one feared that it would become "self-aware" and attempt to destroy mankind. That was a notion that was as real as their most fantastical dreams.

Kaitlin went to sleep and had the strangest nightmares she ever had in her entire life. In the only nightmare she could remember from this night, she discovered that John would be directly responsible for the nuclear holocaust and she would yell and push her parents, to convince them of the coming hell and death, but neither of them would listen to her. During this time, she could also see John from a distance and she asked him and cursed at him, "Why are you doing this? Why can't my family survive? Why are you destroying this world?"

John had a stern look on his face and did not respond at first, but after Kaitlin continued to persevere, John finally answered her, reiterating exactly the opposite of what he had assured her earlier.

"No one is innocent. The human race deserves to be annihilated long ago. It is time for them to understand the gravity of how they threw the fleeting world away and rejected faith hope and charity."

The evil in John's eyes was magnified astronomically in this nightmare. It would not be Kaitlin's last. She would never trust John completely, knowing that something inside of him, left over from a world lost thousands of years ago, a realm no one knows exists, was burning him and destroying him and in the real world, he would burst any day, any moment and show his true colors. He was no Messiah; the world had no need of being saved.

In the dream, Kaitlin looked at John's hand and saw the nuclear detonator. She yelled at him begging him not to pull the plug. If her scream was real, it would have been the most disturbing scream anyone would ever hear. The bombs went off and the world was destroyed. Kaitlin bolted upright from her sleep and gasped for air.

John was pretending to sleep in the makeshift bed beside hers, but said "Can't sleep? I can't either. It's very rare that you have the weight of the whole world on your shoulders. This is the end and the beginning of the greatest ordeal of our lives."

Kaitlin did not catch half of his words because of how she was still half asleep. All she heard from John was that he was carrying "the weight of the whole world" on his shoulders. Kaitlin wondered about her future, and if she could bear so much pain, both physical and emotional. If Judgment Day was coming, she did not even have a good chance of surviving the next coming year. She suddenly felt a chill start in her spine and resonate in her whole body and then she started to cry again. John tried to ignore it; he never knew how to deal with other people's grief.

At about 3:00am she lay back down again and fell asleep.

She woke up late the next day as the afternoon light of the 25th of August streamed through the church window. She looked around and John was nowhere to be found. Part of her thought that John had left and abandoned her, but her next thought was more rational and she went upstairs to try to look for him. She found him sitting on the stone altar of the church, eating his lunch, an apple and some bread. She stood next to where John was sitting and stared out at the sun which towered over the green mountains in the distance, a single car went by. Kaitlin thought about the person in the car and what life would be like for them in the future, how they would die and the slim chances of them meeting her. John finished eating the apple and threw it into what remained of the pews of the church.

"Ever fired a weapon before?" John asked.

"Never." said Kaitlin.

"You need to learn". John asserted.

For the next hour and a half John talked to Kaitlin about war and about famous battles that involved large armies and the tyranny they fought against, or the greed they fought for. He also taught her basic aspects of military strategy. After this he proceeded to show her the weapons that were kept in the basement of the church and showed her how to load and fire an AK-47. John told her how versatile and strong and penetrating and effective the AK-47 was and how it was his favorite weapon for those reasons. As John fired three rounds into a large icon in the corner of the church, he handed the rifle back to Kaitlin who took it and fired three rounds in the exact same place, even closer to the targeted area than John had just fired.

"That was really good." John said. "You're already a good marksman. I love this weapon. The United States which utilized Cyberdyne machines, actually almost lost the Persian Gulf War because of the AK-47. All of the insurgents in Iraq were using Ak-47s. The weapon was so affective against the machines that the War was ten times more expensive than if they had gone straight in with human soldiers. Cyberdyne has made several improvements to their Terminator machines since then, all of which I'm familiar with. My mom has been encouraging me to get familiar with the machines for as long as I can remember."

"Are you ever scared?" Kaitlin asked.

"Of what?" John replied.

"Dying."

"No." John lied.

Kaitlin never elaborated on her question and never asked him about it again. John changed the subject.

"My mom was supposed to come back three days ago and there is still no sign of her coming back."

"What are we going to do?" asked Kaitlin.

"I don't know. It's too dangerous to leave because if anyone catches us alone, we'll be sent away and we have no way of getting a car."

"In addition to the fact that we can't legally drive cars." Kaitlin finished his sentence.

"Things will change very soon." John assured her.

"That's what I'm afraid of." Kaitlin replied.


End file.
